Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refused appointment to all-party delegation headed by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan that proposed to meet Mr. Modi on Thursday to seek resolution of crisis in the cooperative sector following demonetisation.

The Prime Minister’s Office reportedly directed the delegation to meet Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Following this, the delegation cancelled its trip to Delhi. The LDF has announced that it would observe Thursday as black day in protest against Mr. Modi’s decision.

Kerala Cabinet decided to cancel all government orders for Aranmula airport including approval, in principle, granted for the airport on Wednesday.

Pension to Commission members
It also decided to grant pensions to non-official members appointed to various statutory commissions. Those appointed on or after January 1 this year will be eligible. However, they will not be eligible for dearness allowance, minimum pension or family pension.

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan told the Assembly on Tuesday that the government would assist any scrutiny of accounts in cooperatives to detect black money. However, it could not countenance stalling the functioning of cooperative in the name of black money.

Thiruvananthapuram: An all-party meeting convened by Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan on Monday decided that an all-party delegation should meet the Prime Minister Nareandra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to demand resolution of crisis in the cooperative sector.

The names of the members would be announced at the Assembly meeting on Tuesday. The House will pass a resolution after discussion of the crisis. All parties, except BJP, will act jointly in the matter.

KPCC president V. M. Sudheeran has come out against UDF’s plan to launch joint agitation with the LDF in protest against crisis in the cooperative sector.

Taking a stand opposed to that of senior leader Oommen Chandy and Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala, the KPCC president said that the CPI (M) was trying to undermine UDF-controlled cooperatives in several places. So, a joint agitation could not be with the CPI (M).

Kerala MLA Track

During election campaigns it was a surprise to note that sitting MLAs were campaigning based on the local area development funds and not their intervention in the Legislative Assembly.

As a member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly, they are part of the law-making process and are expected to effectively intervene in law-making process. MLAs can utilise various options available to him like questions, submission, point of order, adjournment motions, private member bills etc to keep a check on the executive. They should be rated based on their performance inside the house and not based on their fund allocation and utilisation.

The Kerala MLA Track is an initiative to track parliamentary performance of Kerala MLAs. (Note: Ministers profile is not covered since they are part of executive)-- P. S. Arun